Tale Not So Old As Time
by SanguisRubeus
Summary: Beauty and the Beast inspired fic. Eriol is cursed and the only way to break the curse is if he loves and accepts another for who they are and receives that love and acceptance in return. One day, a new person is sent to stay at his manor who is unconventional to say the least. What going to happen now? Will Eriol find love or will he be forever cursed? The only way to know is read


**Hi everyone!**

**Now this is my first fanfic for this fandom and I hope I do a great job and contribute a good story to it. The only reason I was so hesitant is because, this was the first fandom I fell in love with. I was ten when the show came out in my country so I felt so close to the story and as I said before, I fell in love with it. I collected everything I could and read all of the fanfics I could and was simply the happiest girl in my house. But then I grew up and went into other fandoms for a bit but every time I kept coming back here and reading more fics and fangirling over my first anime crush (Syaoran Li). **

**While looking at fanfics in English I noticed a few things, there was only ONE Beauty and the Beast inspired fanfic and a lot of fics based off Cinderella. Having written two Cinderella fics, I got the best idea for Beauty and the Beast. So this was born.**

**I know your probably wondering whom I'm paring up with whom…frankly, I haven't figured that out yet. Unlike other fandoms I'm in, I have multiple ships for all of my favourite characters. So I decided to let the story lead me to who ends up with whom but if you are free to share your thoughts and I encourage it.**

**Without further adieu, here is my Beauty and the Beast inspired fic. **

_{talenotsooldastime}_** = means scene change, flashbacks etc.**

**Enjoy!**

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Gravity

It was an unusually rainy day when the car pulled up to the stately manor as he watched out through the window. He saw the figure leave the vehicle, heading straight to the very house he lived in with an air of determination along with somber footsteps. There were other figures in the car who were calling out to the other in a language that he didn't understand. Another figure had gotten out of the car and began to speak rapidly to the hooded figure. He recognized that person; it was the one he made the deal with. Anyone else other than him would have felt horrible for doing this but he didn't find himself caring for the unfortunate soul that was joining this life, if he could accept his life then another could do as well he thought. He waited in his room for someone to come in and tell him that it was time for him to go meet the new the guest. While he was waiting, he let his mind wander…

_{talenotsooldastime}_

How this all had begun was one horrible night, many years ago. A night that everyone who lived in that manor tried very hard to forget, a night in which their very existences changed in the worse way possible. Eriol Hiiragizawa was a young magician who had once been the kindest soul in the universe, but that young man was going and in his place was a powerful magician whose power was only second to his pride, vanity and arrogance. This made the people who had watched him grow up feel rather upset as they wanted that kind young boy whose smile lit up the night, not this man. Yes, Eriol Hiiragizawa was extremely rich and once again yes, he was very full of it much to all of the servants chagrin. With the price of being powerful and wealthy came all of the young ladies and some young men practically throwing themselves at him for their want of his power and his fortune.

One of these people who had attempted to pursue him was one, Tomoyo Daidoji whom had a snowball's chance in a volcano when it came to winning his heart. She wasn't an ugly young lady by any means of the word. In fact, she was quite lovely with her black hair and amethyst eyes as well as that lovely pearl skin. She was his personal clothing maker and tailor and she loved making his clothes for him almost as much as she loved him. Many young men in the town pined over her as much as she pined over the magician, sadly it didn't end well for the young girl. Eriol, believing he could pick whomever he wanted, strung the young seamstress along but ultimately refusing her in the most horrible way because she had no magic nor status thus she wasn't good enough. She was just his servant, he had thought to himself once everything was said and done, who was she compared to him?

The poor girl had been utterly humiliated by the magician at a ball he had decided to throw. At first Tomoyo had felt so happy to be invited by the one she loved but then he used his magic to ruin her dress, cut her hair and then chastised her for not having the magic to fight back which had made her the laughing stock of the ball. She ran away from the ballroom and had spent the rest of the night crying on the lap of her best friend Sakura Kinomoto.

Now Sakura was one of those people who always tried to see the bright side in others but this was something that she couldn't over look. She knew that Lord Hiiragizawa was a haughty man but to stoop as low as to humiliate an unsuspecting young woman as Tomoyo was just plain cruel. Unlike Tomoyo, Sakura did have magic but she wasn't interested in Eriol nor was Eriol interested in her. They saw each other as a father and daughter and he had really felt like one when he had taken in Sakura and her brother Toya many years ago back when Eriol was kind and loving. The emerald eyed girl, like everyone else that night, secretly wished there was some way to bring the old Eriol back.

Eriol had been the apprentice of the powerful Clow Reed when he was still a kind young man. His heart hardened when Clow Reed passed away, that was when the apprentice worked so hard to surpass his master. Once he had became that powerful there were many people who strived to bring the man down either out of sheer spite or pure hatred at the good fortune smiling down on the bespectacled one. One of those people was a young woman named Kaho Mizuki but unlike the others she wasn't jealous of him. She had been watching him for some time and she didn't think that hurting Tomoyo feelings the cruelest way possible was funny. Actually, she had grown tired of how he treated others and unlike the others, she wasn't afraid to do something about it. She wanted to teach Eriol a thing or two and possibly knock him down a peg or twenty from his pedestal.

So one night, when Eriol was hosting yet another lavish party, she had struck once her plan had been formulated properly. That particular night was one of the worst nights of the year with a snow storm that no one had seen before. All in all, Kaho was pleased with the storm as it was going to work with what she was planning. She had disguised herself as a young woman without any sort of magic power and begged for shelter from the nasty storm. She claimed she had nothing to give him but she would try her best to pay him back with what she had. Eriol, unimpressed with her looks and lack of magic, had turned her away several times before Kaho had revealed herself as someone with magic but it was too late for the young man. After chasing away all of the guests, Kaho had set her sights on the master of the house who was begging for her forgiveness.

The servants, none of whom dared to abandon their master all gathered to the ballroom during the commotion and only watched with wide eyes at what was unfolding. Feeling bad for the innocent lives being changed, the enchantress sent an apologetic look on all of the servants as she began her curse: Eriol's magic would be sealed away and no longer of any use to him. The servants were cursed with being invisible to those who couldn't use magic and everyone was cursed with never being able to leave the manor grounds. But there was some sort of hope to this unfortunate curse which brought them some sort of comfort.

She had given Eriol a peony bud that would bloom his first year of being cursed. If he could find someone that he loved as they were and receive that love in return before the last peony pedal fell, only then the curse would be broken, if not he and the others would stay the way they were until the end of days. Years had passed swiftly and everyone had fallen into despair, as none of the servants thought Eriol was going to find someone. With his personality, there was a reason why none of his servants tried to fall in love with them. They had all learned their lesson after what had happened with Tomoyo. That was until recently…

Yelan Li had gotten lost, having just moved to Japan with her children to escape the pressures of the Li Clan in Hong Kong. It was difficult being a widow as it is but being a widow with five children to raise was hard but somehow she had survived. Her family had moved to a small town on the outskirts of Tokyo, which was comfortable but she still had work to do. Having gone to Tokyo for Li Clan business, she had promised her daughters to buy them something special from Tokyo but upon asking her youngest child, her son and heir, he simply said something that made her smile while on her trip. It was moments like those when her son reminded her of his father. On her way back, when Yelan had gotten lost, she saw a bush of peonies that had made her smile as they were her favourite flower. Remembering that her Xiao Lang loved that flower as much as she did, she had gotten out of the car and had plucked one of the prettiest ones out of the bush. That was when the trouble began.

That bush was one of the last bits of magic Eriol had done before the curse so he had been rather fond of it and not of someone plucking from it without some sort of permission. He happened to be looking outside the window when he saw her get out of the car and examine the bush. Feeling annoyance and anger well up inside him, he sent his two sun guardians to extend an invitation to the woman. So the woman had been brought in the house by Kerberos and Spinnel Sun when she met the master of the house himself. At first she wasn't afraid of him until she felt the aura of the house and of other things that was when she realized that this place was unlike any other she had experienced before. She wasn't going to let this person before her get a sense of her nervousness, so she put on her cool mask and planned on either fighting her way out or bargaining her freedom. She was going to return to her children even if it killed her.

"It's nice to know that you think you can just steal from my garden like that," He said as he sat in his chair and looked at her.

Yelan looked at the flower in her hand and then looked at the boy expressionless, "I didn't know this house was lived in, I'm not from here and I got lost. This flower is for one of my five children all of whom are waiting for me to return."

The servants had been over hearing what was going on and were interested in what their master was going to do. This didn't happen every single day so everyone stopped what they were doing to listen and watch through the door. Some of the servants thought the woman looked pretty good after giving birth to five children. When this was voiced the people that uttered it received nods and some smacks upside their heads for being so crude. Some of the mothers in the group inwardly cringed at the thought of having to watch over more than two children but adding three? That poor woman must have had it rough and gained the mothers' imminent respect for raising five children. Others noted to everyone else that the woman didn't mention having a husband which got them all curious about this woman who was too lovely to be unmarried with five children. Just who was this woman and was it by chance that she stumbled into their lives or fate?

"Normally when something like this happens the wrong doer gets punished by staying here for life or at least until I decide they learned their lesson but," Eriol said regarding her ever so slightly, "Since you say the flower was for one of your five children, I'll let you go only if you can get one of your children to come in your place, if you can't then you must return. Do we have a deal?"

Some of the servants gasped silently at the audacity of their master to ask such a thing to this woman. How could he force this mother either sacrifice one of her children or herself to him? It was only a flower from the bush outside. It wasn't like this woman had broken in the house and tried to get the special peony, though most of the young servants giggled at the thought of the lady attempting such a feat. Yet the most impressive thing about her was how she was remaining so calm after what their master had told her. All of the servants leaned in closer to the door to listen to what the woman was going to say.

Yelan had thought for a long time and fully preparing to have to return here herself she said, "You have my word that I'll return if none of my children are willing to do so. By when do you want me to return?"

"In a week," He replied, "Just so you know, this house isn't an ordinary house and you are bound to keep your word. If you do not…well, you don't want to know what will happen. It's not pretty, I can assure you that."

_{talenotsooldastime}_

Now the week had past and on this rainy day Eriol had seen one of the figures speaking rapidly to the other that only nodded weakly in return. He saw them embrace each other for a long time before the smaller of the two got in the car and left. He couldn't see the look on the person's face or what this person looked like but he could tell that the person who decided to say felt rather sad. It was only after the car had left did the figure enter the house rather slowly as if secretly hoping that somehow the car was going to come back. That was when Eriol was called to greet their new guest to which he took his sweet time in reaching the room the other was in. When he entered the room he saw the silhouette of the person. They were shorter than he was and possibly thinner than he was but he wasn't too sure, again that jacket and hood made it almost impossible to tell.

"It seems that promises can be kept," Eriol said causing the other to jump lightly.

The servants watched and listened once again through the door wondering what kind of person this new one was. All of them wanted to know that this new person was looked liked; it had been a long time since someone had been a guest in this manor so it was only natural for them to wonder about these things. It was also extremely curious that the other had yet to respond to their master, normally the master would say or do these sorts of things to see what kind of response he was going to get. This lack of response or even care that Eriol had even spoken got everyone a tad bit uneasy. The master had a quite a nasty temper if you angered him, they hope the person didn't have a death wish as none of them were interested in cleaning up blood today.

"I'm the lord of this place. You may call me Lord Eriol or Hiiragizawa," He began, "What is your name?"

The figure took off their coat causing every single servant to gasp quietly, even Eriol was taken aback and that never happened before. It was safe to say that this surprise was almost equal to the shock of getting cursed. The person before him was a young…_man_… who looked no older than seventeen. Not that he was an unattractive young man, on the contrary he was a very attractive young man, but he was still a man nonetheless. He had intense amber eyes and had unruly chestnut brown hair. Now where did this boy get his looks from? Surely not his mother who had black hair, didn't she? They were sure that his mother's eyes weren't amber like that either, was that something he had gotten from his father? The servants and Eriol could only assume from only seeing his mother.

"Xiao Lang or Syaoran," He replied, "I'm here in my mother's place as the flower she had plucked was for me. As it's because of me that she got into this mess in the first place, I decided to come in her place, besides I figured you would want someone younger. My mother has had a difficult time as it is and there is no need to make it even worse by having her surrender her life to you."

That had taken Eriol and the servants aback but most of them were wondering why the woman had planned on bringing her son a flower of all things. The other thing that surprised them was how thoughtful and loving this boy was when it came to his mother. He could have let her come and sacrifice herself to this place but instead, he took responsibility for her actions and came here in her place. They also thought about his mother and how hard it must have been to let her son give up his freedom and come in her place. Yet, everyone had been expecting a young girl with the charm of the woman who was here so finding they were landed with a young boy sent some servants running away to conceal their laughter. Of all of the people that could have been sent, Eriol just had to punish a woman who had five children and out of all of her five children, he just had to end up with her son didn't he? Did fate hate him that much? Kaho just wanted to see the world burn, didn't she? Because if that's what she wanted, that's what she was going to get, the world was going to burn because she let fate send him a boy when a girl would have been preferred.

This was rather awkward for Eriol who was now wondering if he was going to regret this when all was said and done.

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**So what did you think? LET ME KNOW!**

**I wanted my version of the Beauty and the Beast story to be different from others I've seen. Like I said, I'm not sure what my parings are going to be so if you want to suggest something you can. If you have any questions you can ask me though PM, I check my PM daily so you will hear from me. **

**I do hope you enjoyed it and the song I used to inspire this chapter is **Gravity **by **Sara Bareilles**. **

**Reviews = Love**

**Have a great day and I can't wait to hear from you!**

**With Love, **

**SanguisRubeus**


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